A word stem is a word that has multiple inflected variants. For example, the word “run” is a stem of the words “runs” and “running.” Stemming is the process of identifying the stem of a word. The identified stem can then be used to identify other variants of the stem that may have similar meanings to or are synonymous with the original word. These variants with similar meanings can then be added, for example, as optional terms in a search query that includes the original word. This technique of adding optional terms from stem variants to a search query is sometimes referred to as query broadening.